


And the Science Gets Done and You Make a Neat Gun

by CaptainLeBubbles



Category: Camp Camp (Web Series)
Genre: Character Death, Gen, Past Character Death, Portal AU, Psychological Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-11
Updated: 2017-08-11
Packaged: 2018-12-13 22:51:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11770077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainLeBubbles/pseuds/CaptainLeBubbles
Summary: Max wakes up in hell, and it's up to David to get them both out. Portal AU.





	And the Science Gets Done and You Make a Neat Gun

**Author's Note:**

> Read the tags.
> 
> If there's anything I didn't think to tag, feel free to tell me and I'll add it.

(o)  
_/

Max wakes to David shaking him.

He’s in a dim room, lit by the red glow of a nearby radiator, white light spilling in from behind a crack in the wall. A rail feeds through a small, square opening. There are marks on the wall, words written in red. He blinks muzzily at them, then down at his hands; the fingers are raw and caked with dried blood. He blinks again, and looks up at David, who is staring down at him with red-rimmed eyes, looking haggard and drained.

“Da-David?”

“Max!” David looks like he’s about to cry, and throws his arms around Max. He doesn’t cry, but he does shake, trembling all over. Max moves slowly, creaking slowly, to return the hug, and David’s hold on him only tightens.

“What- what are you doing here, Max? I, I, I thought, I thought that you- you-”

“I escaped,” Max says. David loosens his hold, but barely, sitting back and pulling Max with him. It’s a mark of how frightened Max is that he doesn’t fight this, preferring instead to lean into David wearily. “I found this hiding space and I- I guess they never found me.”

“Oh, Max! You’re so smart!”

“Where are the others?” Max asks, ignoring this. “Neil and Nikki and- everyone?”

There’s a long silence. David hangs his head. He holds Max tighter again.

“I, I think, I think they-.” He buries his face in Max’s hair. “They took them away for, for testing, and they never came back.” A dry sob shakes him. “But, but they keep telling me there’s cake at the end of the testing. So, so maybe, maybe they finished and they’re eating cake as, as we speak. M-maybe they’re, they’re, they’re waiting for us.”

Another dry sob. Max carefully doesn’t look at the words on the wall, the words written in his own blood, repeating over and over and over and over and over.

_the cake is a lie the cake is a lie the cake is a lie the cake is a lie the cake is a lie the cake is a lie the cake is a lie the cake is a lie the cake is a lie the cake is a lie the cake is a lie the cake is a lie the cake is a lie the cake is a lie the cake is a lie the cake is a lie the cake is a lie the cake is a lie the cake is a lie the cake is a lie the cake is a lie the cake is a lie the cake is a lie the cake is a lie_

(o)  
_/

David falls asleep, curled around Max, head resting on Max’s curly hair. Max lets him, clinging as close to David as David is to him, listening to the ragged breathing. David is exhausted. It’s been days since he first entered the test chambers, put through his paces as he runs puzzle after puzzle, injuries attended to just enough to get him back on his feet. He’s been given food a few times, a chance to rest, but never much, never more than the bare minimum to keep him alive.

He finally puts Max down when he wakes up. Max just sits there, watching him. David cracks a smile.

“So, is there a way out of this little nest?” he asks, looking around as if there might be an exit he just hadn’t seen. Max just shakes his head.

“If there was, I would have used it already.”

“W-well, I’ve got the, the portal gun, right? Maybe, maybe there’s a way to portal out!”

His grin gets bigger, and he begins combing the little room, while Max stays where he is, watching him. After all, he hasn’t got a portal gun, and doesn’t really know anything about how to use it, either. Eventually, David comes back over and sits down in front of Max, shaking his head.

“No luck,” he says. “We, we either stay here till we die, or, or, or we go back out and finish the test.”

“I don’t have any supplies,” Max says. “No food or water. I’m parched and starving as it is. You might have a few days, at best, but I won’t.”

David falls silent at that, staring Max down thoughtfully. Max is shrunken in on himself, his normally oversized hoodie swallowing him up even more than usual. The days alone- how many days? Max lost count ages ago- have not been kind to him. He hunches over.

“Look, just keep going. You’ll get out all right, at least.”

More silence, and then David stands up suddenly, a determined look on his face.

“Max, I’m going to get you out of here,” he declares. He reaches down to pick up Max, who is too stunned to protest- and he’s used to David carrying him around anyway. David tucks him under his free arm. “Now let’s go.”

“What the fuck are you doing?”

“Saving us.”

He aims the portal gun through the crack in the wall, and fires, then opens a second portal inside the room. Then he sets Max back down and steps through it; for a moment, it’s silent, and then the sound of a portal being fired echoes through the little room, and a small, metallic voice chides David for “destroying valuable testing equipment”. A moment later, with another portal sound, David steps back into the room.

“I destroyed the camera,” he says. “So let’s go. She won’t be able to watch. She won’t know you’re with me.”

“Gonna destroy the cameras in every room?” Max says, while David picks him up again. “What happens when you get to the end of the puzzle? You can’t destroy those cameras.”

“I’ll think of something.” He steps through the portal into the testing room, and sets Max down. “Now you just stay there. I’m going to figure out this puzzle.”

(o)  
_/

David figures out the puzzle. It’s laughably easy, now, now that he’s full of a new determination. Where before he’d been too weary to think straight, now there’s a fire burning behind his eyes. He’s not just saving his own (worthless) skin, now, he’s saving Max, too. Max is worth saving, Max is smart, Max is young, Max deserves far better than to be a lab rat in these sick experiments.

None of them did, really. But David couldn’t save them. David couldn’t save any of them.

Honestly, when it gets down to it, he deserves everything that’s happened to him. After all, he couldn’t save them. He _should_ have saved them.

One last portal. He lines it up beside the door, then picks Max up and steps through, just around the corner from the barrier at the end.

“What now, genius?” Max asks, while David sets him down and peers around the corner at the camera. He eyes it thoughtfully, fires the portal gun experimentally, not surprised when it fails. While Max watches, he moves around, experimenting with the camera’s movements, and finally returns to Max.

“Okay, I think if I just cover the camera you’ll be able to get by to the lift. Can you do that, Max?”

Max stares up at him for a long time, then climbs shakily to his feet and nods. David ducks around the corner then, and a few seconds later Max hears the computerized voice making startled exclamations. He dashes forward, closing his eyes tight when he reaches the forcefield, but all that happens as he passes through it is a tingling sound. He ducks into the lift, sliding down against the wall while David lets go of the camera and dashes after him.

“So what next?” Max asks, breathing heavily. He curls up again, and David is worried. He kneels beside him.

“There’ll be more test rooms,” he says. He’s shaking, the adrenaline rush from his new determination wearing off. “Just stick with me, Max, I’ll, I’ll figure this out. I promise, I’ll get you out of here.”

Max nods, and curls up tighter at the edge of the lift, breathing raggedly and letting his eyes close. He doesn’t believe for one moment that they’ll escape notice for long. There are cameras everywhere, and not all of them are portable. Sooner or later Max is going to be noticed by whoever is running the tests, and taken away. What will happen to him, he wonders? Will he be forced back into testing? Or will he be killed as punishment for escaping to begin with?

After a while, the lift comes to a slow halt, and opens with a soft pneumatic hiss. David pokes his head out, then beckons for Max to follow him. He does, slowly, trailing behind David through the dimly-lit corridor. There’s a screen before the door, with a big number ‘19’ on it, and several symbols. Max recognizes a few of them from his own run through the tests, but one of them is new, a figure flying between two rings. He points at it.

“What’s this one?”

“It means that there’s a drop and I have to use the portals to throw myself over. Don’t worry, I’ll get to the end and then open a safe portal to let you through. You don’t have to do any drops.”

“You sure?”

“Well-” David hesitates. That isn’t always possible. He shakes his head. “I’ll, I’ll do my best, okay?”

Max stares up at him, exhausted, and then nods. “Okay.” He rolls up his sleeves, and pulls his hood up. “Let’s go. Maybe there’ll be a way out sooner or later. If I found one hideyhole-”

“Right.”

(o)  
_/

Max sits near the entrance while David works the puzzle. David doesn’t trust the room or his ability to walk enough to let him wander around. That suits him, though. He’s too tired to walk. He’s not going to be much longer either way, unless they get out and get some food and water into him soon.

He’s amazed he’s lasted this long, honestly.

After a long time, David comes over to Max.

“I was, I was wrong,” he says. He’s shaking again. “There’s no portal near the door, I’ll have to take you with me when I drop. Just, just get on my back, okay? And, and hang on as tight as you can. I need my, my hands free to make the portals.”

Max nods and stands, while David kneels down and lets him climb onto his back. Once he’s sure Max is holding on, he stands and raises the portal gun, concentrating on a white panel high above him. Then he walks over to the ledge and takes a deep breath.

“Holding on?”

Max nods against his back, too scared to look down and see how far they’re going to drop. David takes another deep breath and jumps. Max has his face buried in his back, so he doesn’t see, but he hears when David fires the portal and then suddenly there’s a _shift_ as their gravity changes and they’re moving up instead of down. There’s another _“bwip!”_ as David fires the portal gun again- and two more before the thump and grunt of David landing.

Max lets go and slides from his back to the floor, shaking and burying his head in his arms, still not willing to look down.

“Are we safe now?” he asks. He hears the familiar bwip, and the mechanical voice chastising David for destroying valuable testing equipment, and then raises his head to see David kneeling in front of him again.

“Yes. Let’s go.”

(o)  
_/

They make it through three more rooms. Max isn’t sure how he keeps himself on his feet, but he does, trailing behind David in between tests and curling up in the entryway while David solves them, then back on his feet once David has made it safe for him to move on.

It’s agony. It must be worse for David, who is doing all the work.

They’re in room 22, according to the screen on the wall. The obstacle symbols are minimal- acid, a drop cube, and a launch portal. Not bad. David takes out the cameras and steps into the room while Max rests and waits.

Max has a bad feeling in his gut. It’s been too easy. The cameras haven’t spotted them, there’ve been no observers in the rooms overlooking the testing chambers, and the puzzles have been getting… easier. Simpler. Max has a sinking suspicion that whoever is running these tests is trying to push them to the end faster.

“Max?”

David pulls Max out of his thoughts. He looks up, and blinks in acknowledgement. He barely has the energy to talk anymore. David kneels in front of him.

“There’s a series of panels that are going to take us to the next phase of the test. I don’t know if I’ll be able to leave a portal here for you, so you’ll need to come with me.”

It’s the steadiest Max has seen him since he woke up in that little room. That gives him a bad feeling too, but he nods and pulls himself to his feet while David turns so he can climb onto his back.

The panels are moving slowly over a moat filled with acid. Max looks down at it and shudders while David calculates the portals. Why acid? Whose bright idea was that? It just seems excessive.

They’re approaching a barrier. Bwip! David jumps through the portal and they’re on the other side of it, going around a corner. Upcoming the panel they’re on drops, while another slides out of the wall a little way ahead. Bwip! Bwip! And now they’re on the forward panel. Max shudders again, and clings a little tighter to David’s back. His life is depending on David’s timing, and David is shaking. He’s at his limits.

“Congratulations!” says the cheery, computerized voice that has led them through the tests. “You are reaching the final stage of the test. Please remain calm.”

“That. Sounds ominous,” Max says.

David is breathing heavily suddenly; Max cranes his neck up to look over his shoulder and suddenly drops from his back in a panic. There’s no door- just a drop, into an incinerator. Max presses his hands against his mouth, suppressing the urge to scream. Oh god, they’re going to die, the people running the tests are going to kill them, is this what happened to the others, oh god, no wonder they never came back.

David is looking around wildly, trying to find an escape, but the only portal surfaces around him open onto a drop into acid. Their choices are acid or fire, and neither seems quick and painless. And he can’t die, he promised Max he’d get him out.

Max sees the wall before David does, and points- a high platform, beyond the incinerator, with a white wall behind it. David moves quickly, placing a portal on it and another ahead of them. They’re just in time; they’re at the edge of the incinerator, and there’s no more portable wall beyond.

“You first,” he says, almost shoving Max through it as they get closer. Max grunts as he thumps onto the floor, and then looks up in time to see David jumping for the portal just as the platform drops into the incinerator below.

He makes it, but only barely, clinging to the base of the portal. Max scrambles forward and grabs his arms with his own, and for the first time David realizes how weak Max has gotten. His arms are skin and bone, shaking just from this much effort. David isn’t much better, his own strength going. He’ll never be able to pull himself up, and if Max tries, he’ll only succeed in dropping them both.

Max sees his decision in his eyes as soon as he makes it.

“David- no-”

“Max.”

“Just hang on-”

“ _Max_.”

“Don’t you dare-”

“Here.” David lets go with one hand and shoves the portal gun through, into Max’s chest. “Take this, you’ll need it to escape.”

“David, you’re not-”

“I’m sorry.”

Maybe dying won’t be so bad, David thinks, as he drops, Max’s horrified face watching him through the portal as he falls. And at least Max is safe.

(o)  
_/

Some time later, long after the screams have died away, a door opens onto the platform. Campbell whistles cheerily to himself as he approaches the broken, empty personality core, wrapped in the blue hoodie. He isn’t sure why Davey had decided to carry it with him through the test chambers, only to save it from the incinerator, but he isn’t complaining. Campbell Corp technology, even broken technology, is expensive, and he’s glad he doesn’t have to remake the portal gun.

He picks up the portal gun and checks it over- there’re some dings from the tests, but nothing that can’t be easily fixed. He shifts it to one hand and picks up the core with the other. It blips at him; he turns it over, and sees a flashing symbol on the screen.

“Scan complete?” He taps it. “Scanning what?”

There’s no answer. He shrugs, and, whistling, heads back to the door. He’ll get the lab boys to take a look at it. Maybe it’ll give them some new insight into the tests.

(o)  
_/

**Author's Note:**

> It may or may not ever get written, but I do have a sequel planned.


End file.
